Gulf War Air Power Survey
Receiving and Storing Spares at Deployed Locations
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- Deployed Supply Operations
- Accounting for Assets - the Plans and Reality
- Establishing of the CENTAF Supply Support Activity
- Figure 61 34 CENTAF Supply Support Activity Configuration
- Table 22 CENTAF
Receiving and Storing Spares at Deployed Locations Spares were received and stored in a variety of ways in the AOR. In addition to location and facilities requirements, the types of spares being received and their methods of shipment made the process difficult or easy. Without question, the method of shipment easiest to deal with from a receiving and storing perspective was kitted spares packages shipped directly from the home base to the AOR beddown base as a part of a unit move. In such cases, the supported unit knew what they had and, even under the most austere conditions, could protect spares reasonably well because most items were in mobility bins. On the opposite end of the spectrum were individual spares “pushed” to the theater without unit designation, followed closely by loose resupply items and non-kitted spares packages. Serious difficulties in materiel movement were experienced early on in the AOR. The problems were most critical early on when beddown locations were classified and materiels were being shipped to the AOR with no specific address or indication of the unit the materiel was intended for. One of the best descriptions of the situation at that time was provided in a staff paper provided by Hq Military Airlift Command: In the early portions of Desert Shield, destination codes were not provided to the field and the field didn't ask . . . everything was just shipped to Dhahran. As a result, hundreds of pallets were sitting in the Aerial Port facility at Dhahran with no one knowing where they were to go, to whom, or the relative priority. Deployed tactical airlift units would fly the first sortie of the day to Dhahran and leave several people [from units deployed to the various operating locations] there to roam about the yard looking for their shipments and return on the last sortie of the day with whatever they had found.517 While the above problems were worked out over time and, from a spares perspective, caused no documented impact on combat capability, they might have been critical had the deployed aircraft immediately engaged, had spares been in short supply, or had Dhahran come under attack before the cargo backlog was sorted out. As was discussed in the transportation chapters, the general flow of materiels into the AOR was not always smooth. This was especially true for materiels that were not part of a unit move. In the continental United States, backlogs occurred at major departure airports such as Dover, where at times over 3,000 tons of materiel, including spares, awaited airlift. The staff of Air Force, Central Command Rear perceived the problem to be so bad that anytime it became aware that a spare destined for the AOR had been routed into Dover, it rerequisitioned the item and requested specific routing to alternate airports such as Tinker AFB in Oklahoma, and, later Charleston AFB in South Carolina.518 The inability of the supply and transportation systems to provide intransit visibility exacerbated the problems. While both systems have reasonably good tracking capabilities, visibility is often lost as an item moves from the supply system into the transportation system. Within the supply system, items are tracked by requisition number, but within the transportation system, item movement is tracked by transportation control numbers. For shipping efficiency, many supply requisitions are consolidated into a single transportation movement unit, which in turn is further consolidated for shipment. When such shipments were broken down at intermediate transportation hubs, detailed traceability was often lost. Therefore, when items needed to support immediate mission requirements became delayed or lost within the system, it was difficult, and often impossible, to track down and expedite movement to the point of need. New tracking system capabilities were developed to help work around the problem. Establishing physical control over deployed spares was not always easy in the AOR. Storage facilities given to the deployed units ranged from standard warehouse facilities to no shelter at all. While the wheeled bins used to store and ship most of the preestablished spares packages afforded reasonable protection for their contents, most of the new packages were deployed without bins. Storing these loose spares was a problem requiring local innovation. Had the deployed units needed to move from a location quickly after initial beddown, gathering and moving in-theater spares would have been extremely difficult. Deployed Supply Operations Of all the major planned Desert Shield and Desert Storm supply support concepts, only the Forward Supply System operated by Military Airlift Command (MAC) in support of strategic airlift operations stayed intact. Equally important, this supply support concept MAC used to support the war effort was essentially the same concept it used day-to-day in support of peacetime operations; MAC simply raised the tempo and did more of the same. The Forward Supply System is tailored to the C-5 and C-141 aircraft supporting MAC's strategic airlift mission through a predetermined route structure linking a series of worldwide en route and turnaround stations with the east and west coast hubs of the continental United States. Centrally managed spares with quantities computed to support peak wartime tasking are dynamically allocated to the various locations within the route structure on the basis of planned operating tempos and prepositioned maintenance capabilities. To make the transition from peacetime to wartime operating tempos, MAC shifted spares and support personnel from the Pacific area of operation to the European area linking to a preestablished route base at Dhahran. Stock levels at Rhein Main, Torrejon, and Ramstein were increased by approximately thirty percent, while Pacific levels were reduced about the same amount. C-141 war readiness spares kits (WRSKs) were deployed to all three of the European bases, and C-5 WRSKs were deployed to Rhein Main and Torrejon. While the primary spares support for aircraft in the AOR was initially from the spares packages deployed with the units, other support concepts evolved. One of the earliest and biggest was the establishment by Strategic Air Command (SAC) of supply centers at Moron AB in Spain, Andersen AFB on Guam, and, later, RAF Fairford in the United Kingdom.519 The centers at Moron and Andersen were activated during the first thirty days of Desert Shield and provided automated supply inventory management and resupply for SAC aircraft at those locations and elsewhere within the AOR. In addition to providing equipment and repair part support to the maintenance centers collocated at those locations, the supply centers furnished resupply support for all SAC aircraft deployed in the AOR and European theaters. While the supply center at RAF Fairford remained relatively small (it never exceeded 2,000 line items), the supply operations at Moron AB and Andersen AFB were large. At its peak, the Moron account stocked over 24,000 line items valued at over $120 million520an especially noteworthy situation given that Moron was in a caretaker status at the beginning of Desert Shield. Although somewhat larger, the operation at Andersen was built upon an established supply account. Another major spares support innovation was the development and deployment of follow-on spares kits. These kits, which only Tactical Air Command built, were put together on the fly at the Command's Headquarters. Requirements were centrally computed, and the required assets were requisitioned directly from the wholesale sources of supply using high-priority requisitions. Air Force, Central Command Rear Director of Supply made the decision to bypass base stocks from continental U.S. bases building the follow-on spares kits for deployment because those bases were still supporting homestation flying activities.521 (According to Air Force Logistics Command sources, the procedure for requisitioning the kits had not been coordinated with them.) The impact of the innovation on wholesale stocks was significant; over $400 million worth of follow-on spares kits were issued and put into transportation pipelines to the various Tactical Air Command bases, where they were aggregated and forwarded to that Command's units in the AOR. Strategic Air Command also developed and deployed additional packages of spares to augment the spares initially deployed to operating bases and the supply centers. The spares packages were similar in concept to the Tactical Air Command's follow-on spares kits, but were developed using Strategic Air Command's unique automated retrieval and compare programs operating on failure and demand data from Strategic Air Command's continental U.S. bases. Individual packages were developed to support the various types and numbers of aircraft at each beddown. They were centrally assembled at a continental U.S. location and were shipped as assembled spares packages to the supply centers and operating locations.522 In addition to being in a very favorable spares position as Desert Shield began, units tasked to support the effort were afforded the highest priority for the allocation of those spares. Under the basic Department of Defense system, available spares are allocated to fill field requirements on the basis of the unit's relative priority and the date of the unit's request for the spares. Requirements for the Gulf War were assigned the highest priority for issue and movement. Standard requisitioning procedures were interrupted, and the priority system became overloaded at the top. A problem noted early on was the inconsistent treatment of consumable523 spares in the mobile spares packages.524 Although the policy is that units should build and deploy consumable spares along with spares that can be repaired, not all units had done so. In at least one case, consumable spares requirements had been established for the spares package, but consumable spares had not been put into the packages because funding for that type of spare was restricted.525 Another type of consumable spares problem was identified in the B-52 spares package. Although the requirements had been identified and filled in those packages, the requirements had not been reviewed and updated for several years, and the assets in the packages had not been inspected for serviceability. As a result, Strategic Air Command had to totally rebuild the B-52 consumable spares segments and ship them to the AOR and other forward operating bases.526 Accounting for Assets - the Plans and Reality At the time the first aircraft units were deployed to the AOR, a traditional approach to deployed asset accounting was envisioned. Planners are referred to Annex D of OPLAN 1002-90 (2nd draft) dated 18 Jul 90 for logistics guidance.527 That guidance called for an evolutionary support system beginning with each deployed unit linked initially to its homestation for support and ending with establishment and use of a full Standard Base Supply System “main frame” environment within the AOR. A subsequent CENTAF message in mid-August 1990 provided details of how this was to be done.528 The plan at that time was to use a three-phase approach. Phase I, covering the period C to C+60, envisioned use of the Combat Supply System, with each unit linked to its homestation for support. During Phase II, C+61 to C+180, the deployed units were to transition to satellite accounts529 hosted off the core supply unit's home station account; Phase III, C+181 on, involved a transition to a main operating base concept in the AOR with on-site Tactical Shelter Systems.530 The message from CENTAF intended to fill a planning void while other alternatives were being considered.531 As adjustments proceeded, the above supply support concept was abandoned. In addition to Combat Supply System problems, which are addressed in the next section, major concerns were raised with respect to the Tactical Shelter Systems. The concerns centered on the computer system's configuration, the numbers of systems that were available, and the ability of the Tactical Shelter System to withstand a move to the desert. Before the end of August 1990, the idea of establishing mainframe support within the AOR was scrubbed and replaced with a new plan that envisioned a single continental U.S. mainframe supporting all supply accounts in the AOR. CENTAF Rear Director of Supply selected the single continental U.S. mainframe option over other options, which included establishing individual satellite accounts hosted off existing home base computers and other Major Command-proposed variations addressed later.532 The revised plan, which was the genesis of the CENTAF Supply Support Activity, called for establishing traditional satellite supply accounts at the AOR beddown locations and linking them back to the continental United States through a large communications processor to be located at Thumrait, Oman.533 Unit rotation plans considered at the time were a main factor in the centralization decision. Also, Hq TAC/LGS, as the CENTAF Rear supply activity, had access to the needed technical and personnel resources and felt it could best execute its responsibilities from a centralized continental U.S. facility.534 The above approach to supply support was not immediately accepted by the other participating Major Commands. In particular, U.S. Air Force Europe (USAFE) took strong exception to the plan and made a counter proposal to support the AOR using Air Force in-place resources in Europe.535 USAFE recommended making all AOR accounts satellites off USAFE bases, stating that the bases had both the resources and the capability to do the job at that time, which was early September 1990. Concurrently, MAC implemented support concepts that it felt were working and saw no need for the continental U.S. consolidation. Strategic Air Command (SAC) also implemented support concepts that were working. However, the concepts were dependent on scarce voice communications lines for support within the AOR. After initially resisting the CENTAF Supply Support Activity concept, MAC and SAC accepted the CENTAF Supply Support Activity for their AOR-based units, with some variations that will be addressed later.536 The primary approach to accounting for assets upon initial deployment to the AOR was to use the Combat Supply System, a small computer system designed to deploy with the early elements of aircraft units.537 The main uses of the Combat Supply System were to (1) account for assets in the deployed spares packages, (2) prepare usage and requirements transactions to be sent back to a homestation computer to update inventory records, and (3) allow the homestation to act as the deployed unit's first source of supply. Although described in the supply manual as “a stand alone supply computer processing system which can perform essential supply inventory management processes independently,”538 the Combat Supply System actually has very limited capability. Most of the Combat Supply System's functional limitations are documented in the Supply Wartime Planning and Execution Guide.539 Perhaps its most serious limitation is that its designed telecommunication capability never worked properly. The known Combat Supply System limitations were compounded during Desert Shield by equipment failures due primarily to heat, difficulty in getting deployed transactions back to the Standard Base Supply System, a general lack of user training, and the fact that not all units brought Combat Supply Systems.540 These problems were never fully resolved, and the resulting loss of asset visibility at the individual homestation accounts carried over to the wholesale supply system, which was effectively blinded. Also, the ineffectiveness of the Combat Supply System contributed to the loss of much of the spares consumption and field data for the August 1990 through January 1991 period, especially for Tactical Air Command units.541 The deficiencies of the Combat Supply System were not a serious problem for local management of spares at the AOR bases, since alternate manual accounting methods could be used even if the computer failed. In the past, manual stock record cards or computer listings were used as the primary way to manage spares during deployments and contingencies. Fortunately that capability remained, and in fact, some of the deployed units used manual procedures as their basic asset accounting method. The high mission-capable rates in the AOR achieved, despite Combat Supply System problems, attest to the success of these manual and various innovative “work-around” procedures. The fact that the deployed units were able to survive and prosper with the noted deficiencies of the Combat Supply System does not imply that deployed computer support is not needed. Quite the contrary; an ability to continue automated processing of supply requirements would have greatly improved the overall efficiency of the operation and avoided most of the brute force heroics needed to keep the system running. For example, supply operations using preestablished or normal Standard Base Supply System satellite account procedures (such as those used by the MAC Forward Supply System and Proven Force units) did not experience the above problems. Likewise, the CENTAF Supply Support Activity ultimately established for the AOR used a more standard, although much larger, satellite account structure that did not experience the noted Combat Supply System problems. Establishing of the CENTAF Supply Support Activity During the beddown of the Air Force units in the AOR, it became apparent that the residual supply staff at Ninth Air Force, CENTAF Rear did not have sufficient manning to handle the large volume of policy and support requirements issues being generated. The bulk of the supply staff had been sent forward to establish the CENTAF Forward supply operation. To fill this void, the Tactical Air Command Director of Supply was designated CENTAF Rear/LGS. Under that arrangement, the entire Tactical Air Command supply staff was brought to bear on AOR support issues. In response to the deficiencies noted earlier, CENTAF Rear/LGS decided to build a central supply support facility. That staff was subsequently augmented by supply personnel from the other commands and Defense organizations.542 After an extensive growth period, the CENTAF Supply Support Activity was directly supporting twenty-one supply accounts in the AOR. Units supported by CENTAF Supply Support Activity satellite accounts had visibility of assets within the AOR at bases having the same type of aircraft. Also, the CENTAF Supply Support Activity personnel at Langley had visibility of all assets in the AOR that had been loaded into the central system. Figure 61 shows the general configuration of the CENTAF Supply Support Activity. Figure 61 34
From October 1990 through January 1991, most supply support for the major bases in the AOR transitioned to the CENTAF Supply Support Activity. Direct computer connectivity was provided to twenty-one sites established as Standard Base Supply System satellite accounts. The satellite accounts were organized from a systems perspective into three host supply accounts composed of groups called gangs (See Table 22). Table 22 CENTAF Supply Support Activity Sites
By design, the gangs were arranged to cover like types of aircraft. Because of the mix of aircraft at some bases, however, there were some exceptions. For example, while most large aircraft were supported within Gang 1, nearly half the C-130s were supported through Gang 2 or 3 bases. Likewise, the “fighter gang,” Gang 2, supported all F-15s, all F-117s, and most F-16s, but the F-4Gs, RF-4Cs, and all of the A-10s were supported through Gang 3 along with multiple other low‑density aircraft. The terminals at each site in the AOR had direct visibility of assets at the other sites on the gang. The CENTAF Supply Support Activity, in turn, had total visibility of all sites within the AOR. The individual sites were activated over a two-month period starting in mid-November 1990. Each CENTAF Supply Support Activity support site was equipped with remote job entry terminals and a communications processor543 that linked it, either directly or through another site, to another, but larger communications processor (called the Batmobile) located at Thumrait, Oman. Connectivity to the continental U.S. was via military satellite to Ft. Detrick, Maryland, and on to Langley AFB, Virginia, over a dedicated commercial lease line. CENTAF Supply Support Activity operations at Langley were hosted on the Tactical Air Command (TAC) MAJCOM Development Center UNYSIS 2200/400 series computer, which was upgraded to provide the needed processing and storage capacity. By the end of Desert Storm, the CENTAF Supply Support Activity was the largest Air Force retail supply account ever assembled, with 288,290 item records and an asset value in excess of $1.5 billion.544 Given the absolute priority of aircraft support, the CENTAF Supply Support Activity concentrated first on providing spares for out-of‑ commission aircraft and getting aircraft spares packages loaded on the computer. With the exception of some SAC and MAC aircraft addressed later, the CENTAF Supply Support Activity supported most aircraft spares requirements in the AOR. An automated system recently installed at TAC proved to be very effective in finding spares to support requirements in the AOR.545 That system provided worldwide visibility of assets, allowing the CENTAF Supply Support Activity spares controllers to locate and request shipment of available assets quickly. Lateral support actions requested through the CENTAF Supply Support Activity satisfied approximately forty-five percent of spares requirements for aircraft out-of-commission in the AOR.546 Concurrent with providing spares support for out-of-commission aircraft, the process of transferring the spares packages in the AOR to the CENTAF Supply Support Activity computer at Langley was started. Loading the spares records using home station data was a long and arduous process and highlighted serious quantity variations between the computer records and actual spares balances in the AOR. At the direction of CENTAF Rear LGS, existing balance discrepancies were corrected by adjusting kit quantities to the actual on-hand quantities determined by physical inventory.547 While these adjustments were essential to effective current operations, consumption data were lost in the process, along with the audit trail for spares losses and gains. By the end of the war, 2,400 segments of deployed spares packages comprising over 220,000 records were loaded. The records covered most of the aircraft packages but only fifty to sixty percent of nonaircraft packages such as combat communications. In addition, accountability for only about ten percent of the equipment items deployed into the AOR had been picked up on CENTAF Supply Support Activity records.548 The major task of establishing and maintaining operating stock levels for the full range of base support items never occurred. Other major functions performed included all financial and fuels accounting for the deployed units. At its peak, the CENTAF Supply Support Activity was staffed with over 130 people drawn from several organizations, including the TAC Staff, First Air Force, TAC wings, SAC, MAC, Air Force Logistics Command, Air National Guard, and Defense Logistics Agency. Estimates indicated that operating the CENTAF Supply Support Activity as a central facility versus deploying mainframe computers to the AOR reduced supply and communication personnel requirements in the AOR by 400 to 600.549 In the operation of the CENTAF Supply Support Activity, exceptions were made in supply transaction routing for SAC and MAC aircraft operating in the AOR. Requisitions for SAC B-52 and KC-135 aircraft located in the AOR were electronically passed to Moron AB for processing. Mission-capable (MICAP) parts requirements for those aircraft were called into the CENTAF Supply Support Activity, which in turn forwarded the requirements to Moron AB. Mission-capable-parts requirements for B-52s that could not be supported at Moron were passed to the Eighth Air Force at Barksdale AFB for processing. KC-135 mission-capable-parts requirements that could not be satisfied were sent back to the CENTAF Supply Support Activity.550 Requisitions supporting MAC's C-130 aircraft in the AOR were electronically passed to Rhein Main AB for processing. C-130 mission-capable-parts requirements were called directly into Rhein Main by the airlift control element teams located at the AOR operating bases.551 Directory: sgp -> library sgp -> Sgp country Programme Strategy for op6 sgp -> Itu-d study groups sgp -> Internship with Congressional Campaign Exploratory Committee — Only 4 spots left! sgp -> Using Well Logs in the Petroleum Industry sgp -> Telecommunication development bureau itu-d study groups Download 5.55 Mb. Share with your friends:
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